International Football History and Statistics

On this day in football history

• 1924 Jimmy Trotter, Sheffield Wednesday centre-forward, scored all five goals against Portsmouth in a Second division game. He spent a lifetime in the game; from 1919 to 1933 as a player and then 23 years as trainer to Charlton Athletic followed by five years as manager until October 1961. His playing career began with Bury and he moved to Wednesday in 1923 scoring 108 League goals in 150 matches before joining Torquay United in 1930. He scored 26 goals in his first season in the West Country but then a knee injury affected his form and, after a few games with Watford in 1922-23, he retired as a player. Whilst trainer at Charlton he often undertook the same role for England.
• 1930 Division One saw two high-scoring matches on the same day. Huddersfield Town beat Blackpool 10-1 and Sheffield Wednesday beat Birmingham 9-1.
• 1931 Four days after being beaten 7-1 by England at Highbury Spain visited Dublin and beat Eire 5-0. It was Eire's first full international.
• 1947 Derek Dooley signed professional forms with Sheffield Wednesday. Standing 6'3" and with a shock of red hair he was to become the sensation of the 1952-53 season. After only a handful of games in the interim five years he came into the Wednesday side in October 1952 when they were 17th in the Second Division. By the end of the season they were Champions and Dooley had scored 46 goals in 30 matches. In the following season he had already scored 16 goals when he broke his leg in a collision with George Thompson, Preston goalkeeper, during a match at Preston in February 1954. Gangrene set in and he had to have his leg amputated in order to save his life.
• 1960 Peter Farrell resigned as manager of Tranmere Rovers. He was one of the Republic of Ireland's finest ever wing-halves and came to England in 1946 to join Everton from Shamrock Rovers. He was capped seven times by Northern Ireland before rules laid down in 1949 stated that a player could only be capped for one country. Thereafter he went on to win 25 Eire caps and captained the side which beat England 2-0 at Goodison Park in 1949; the first home defeat for England outside the International Championship. He made 420 League appearances for Everton and then joined Tranmere as player-manager in 1957. He made a further 114 appearances for them before hanging up his boots at the end of the 1959-60 season.